Sagabite

Ever believe there would be a place where a turkey crossing sign would be important?  Mr. Canada thinks so:

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Early in the spring of 2004, my wife was driving me to work along a semi-rural road between Odessa and Kingston, Ontario.  Lots of forest, swamp and a few open fields.  I was quite delighted when I noticed a wild turkey in one of the fields.

“Wow”, I thought to myself.  I had never seen a turkey other than in domestic flocks or on the dinner table, so this was very cool.  I didn’t mention it to my wife- I’m not sure why- but looking back that might have been a good thing.

I’m watching the turkey and it is running. Toward the road, and at quite a clip.  Now my geometrical brain is kicking in…calculating the turkeys path with our own.  It looked like we were on a collision course.

“Wonder what that turkey is running from-or to,” I am thinking now.  This thought quickly turned into: ”Surely this thing is going to stop at the road…or fly…something… right?”

Wrong.

When it became obvious to me that there would be no stopping, no flying, no nothing to alter this turkey’s suicide mission, all I could manage to get out was “TURKEY! TURKEY! TURKEY!”

Then boom!

That sucker plowed into the driver’s door of the car at whatever speed it is a turkey can run.

We pulled over, and I got out to assess the damage.  “Be careful, “my wife says, like I am in danger of being pecked to death by whatever remains of  this turkey.  This was no Hummer, in fact a cheap little small car, but the damage was still quite extensive.  There was no way the drivers door would open.  Thankfully, insurance covered it.

As for the turkey?  Well, the only sign there ever was a turkey was a small bit of blood on the driver’s side mirror.  Never found the body.  Not even a feather.

And when my wife called the insurance company to report the accident- “A turkey hit me!”-?

The lady at State Farm wanted to know: “What was the name of this turkey?”

Well…..

Another good story from Mr. Canada.  You’ve never really shoveled snow if you are no in shoveling snow.

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I was born in the South.  Now I don’t mean the mint-julep-sippin’ South that sees the occasional snowflake.  I’m talking about the spittin‘-distance -from-Cuba South; the one time in my lifetime we had snow, I slept through all 2 minutes of it.  I was an adult the first time I saw snow, and although I have lived nearly half of my life in snow-prone areas, my shoveling has been confined to small bits of sidewalk.  Suffice to say, I am no professional at snow removal.  Or I wasn’t before this past winter anyway.

My newly purchased house in Canada is beautiful: almost an acre overlooking Beaver Lake, complete with detached garage.  I will never have to scrape the windshield again! In my joy over this fact, I failed to consider the 25 feet of sidewalk leading to the garage, or the driveway from the garage to the road.   Why did my usually logical brain fail to take this into account?  I don’t know, but this serious flaw in my thinking soon became obvious.

The first few snows, which came in November, were no problem.  The snow was light and fluffy, and I had us cleared out and on the road in 10 -minutes.  I was quite meticulous about clearing every inch of sidewalk and driveway.  “Wow!  It is so beautiful!” I thought at the time.

Our first big snow came in December.  It was wet and heavy and came about halfway to my knee.  I put on about 3 layers of clothing, boots, gloves and hat.  It took me 20 minutes to get dressed.  It took a lot longer than that to shovel us out.  When I was done 2 hours later, the sidewalk and driveway were clear.  The mailbox, on the other hand, was starting to get snowed in, but I thought I would deal with that the next day.  Right.  “It’s still beautiful!” I’m thinking.

Those weeks from late December to February, I was shoveling everyday for hours. The nice wide sidewalk became a path with snow over my head on either side.  The driveway was a similar path, just wide enough for the car to pass.  The mailbox?  Well, that was buried so deep that I had to pick up my mail in town-the mailman couldn’t get to the box.  At this point, I have progressed from saying to myself, “it’s so beautiful” to “what was I thinking?”

By the time of the spring thaw, I was done with snow.  I thought if I saw one more snowflake I would just lose it.  “If only I had a mailbox, I could go postal!” was my insane thinking at the time.

The bad news is my back may never be the same.  The good news is I never once had to scrape the windshield! I also have earned some esteem from my neighbors who were quite sure ‘the Floridian’ would never make it.  Never underestimate an American!